Contributors


Writing Program
English Dept

Using the Internet for Scholarly Research:

Today we will be discussing the Internet as a tool for scholarly research. Now one of the great things about the Internet is that anyone, no matter their age, education, or personal beliefs, etc. can publish information. On the other hand, one of the problems with the Internet is that anyone, no matter their age, education, or personal beliefs, etc. can publish information. That means that you, as the consumer of Internet information, must be especially careful when you are selecting materials to believe and to cite in an academic paper. To help you understand some of the rules for Internet research, I'd like you to complete the scavenger hunt I've posted below. (This will be done in groups.)

1. You are writing a paper on the crash of the Hindenberg in 1937. In addition to the library sources you have collected, you are searching the Internet for some good information about why the Hindenberg crashed. You find the following four sites:

http://vlewis.net/hindenburg.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/html/e3-menu.html
http://njtimes.rutgers.edu/crash.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/sd/ZSPdomain/HydrogenHomepage/
Experiment.html

• What do each of these sites offer as the most likely reason for the Hindenberg disaster?
• Which one are you going to choose to argue in your paper? Why?

2. It's three weeks later, you've handed in the paper to your English teacher and now you're working on a paper about Dr. Martin Luther King. Again, you've gone to the library and found several credible sources and are now searching the net for some additional resources. You find the following sites:

www.thekingcenter.org
www.martinlutherking.org

• Which of these sites do you think is more credible? Why?
• What can you conclude about the meaning of .org?

3. You are now writing a paper on The Drug War. You find the following two sites. They contradict one another, and you're not sure which one you should use in your paper. Besides, your English teacher will only let you have two Internet sites total, and you need to be selective.

http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wod.html
www.usdoj.gov/dea/

• Which site are you going to use? Why?

4. You're now writing a paper on date rape. You want to gather some statistics about the prevalence of rape in the United States. You go to the following web sites:

www.gmu.edu/facstaff/sexual/sexual_stats.html
http://www.rainn.org/stats.html
www.aardvarc.org/rape/about/stats.shtml
http://www.icasa.org/statsFactsdetails.asp?ID=104

• What was the number of rapes committed in one year according to each of these sites?
• Which statistic are you going to quote in your paper? Why?

When you've completed the Internet scavenger hunt, we will talk about the answers to these questions in class and discuss some rules for good Internet research.

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